Search results for "Market economy"
showing 10 items of 138 documents
The dynamics of privatization and regulation of water services: a comparative study of two Spanish regions
2013
As in other economic activities, privatization of water delivery has not resulted in the retreat of the public sector, but rather a change in the way in which the government intervenes in the water industry. This paper illustrates this situation by comparing urban water services in two Spanish regions, Andalusia and Catalonia. Water service delivery is structured very differently in these two regions with respect to private involvement, the degree of market concentration and, as a result, problems in competition. The characteristics of the two regions' respective regulatory agencies reflect the different paths taken to privatization: in Catalonia private firms have much more tradition and o…
Sports Cars, Sleaze and Gamma Rays: Rhineland-Palatinate Elects its First Red-Green Government
2012
The 2011 election in Rhineland-Palatinate was a political earthquake: Following a string of political scandals, the SPD lost almost ten percentage points of their support, while the CDU could hardly improve on their disastrous 2006 result. The FDP is no longer represented in the state parliament. The Greens more than tripled their last result, allowing them to enter a coalition with the SPD for the first time. Analyses at the municipal level show that the party improved most in their urban strongholds while still showing a (relatively) weak performance in rural areas. This will make it difficult to sustain the momentum of their victory. Moreover, the SPD is battered and bruised and needs to…
Green Bonds: Between economic incentives and eco-change
2020
Abstract As the investor base committed to financing sustainable companies in an attempt to combat the climate crisis expands, green financial products have become more attractive to issuers, corporate and sovereign alike. As a result, the EU is attempting to create favourable market conditions which mobilise the allocation of private capital for investments that reduce the contribution to climate change. As part of the EU Commission’s Action Plan for Sustainable Finance, it intends to create Green Bond Standards which aim to support the transition to greener securities investments. As a foundation, we provide an overview of the green bond market development. We then consider investment cha…
Monopolizing the Property of Skill: A Prosopographic Analysis of a Finnish Ironworks Community
2012
SummaryThis article examines the survival of artisan labour structures and their property of skill in a case where neither a guild nor a union was present. Both of these institutions have traditionally been given as explanations for the survival of artisan labour structures and their property of skill. By using a prosopographic analysis of a Finnish ironworks community, this article follows a locally monopolized property of skill from 1880 to 1950. This monopoly was based on an informal apprenticeship system and the control of human capital, and was tied tightly to a closed network of smiths and their families. It was able to function in full force without the backing of any formal institut…
Rents instead of Land. Credit and Peasant Indebtedness in Late Medieval Mediterranean Iberia: the Kingdom of Valencia
2021
AbstractThe literature on the rural economy of the high and late Middle Ages has long established a close correlation between three significant features of the period: the spread of rural credit, the dynamism of the peasant land market and the expropriation of peasant land by the creditors, usually yeomen or urban landowners. There has even been talk for some countries (northern Italy) of a deliberate strategy of territorial conquest, insofar as the credit provided by urban lenders would aim at the expropriation of land from insolvent debtors. This article studies for the Mediterranean Spain of the late Middle Ages, and in particular for the old kingdom of Valencia, other objectives of rura…
Tackling Market Failure or Building a Cartel? Creation of an Investment Regulation System in Finnish Forest Industries
2015
Government intervention in the economy is often justified by the need to correct market failures. This study analyzes one case, the investments of Finnish forest industries, in which, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, both policy makers and the trade association representing the sector reasoned that intervention was particularly necessary because otherwise, the only substantial natural resource in the small country would be overexploited. In the long run, however, the growth of forest resources turned out to be higher, and the demand for wood lower, than expected. Furthermore, the most influential industrialists managed to “capture” the regulatory system and make it a component of their ne…
How Parallel Markets Fueled Chronic Shortage in the Soviet Official Sector
1999
The paper presents a disequilibrium model of a pre-transition centrally planned economy, with explicit description of labour supply to the official sector, as well as illegal economic activities. Under weak assumptions, raising official prices for deficit goods leads to even higher inflation in the shadow sector and increases the labour supply to the official sector. However, aggregate supply does not grow as much as income, and (flow) excess demand in the official sector goes up, while excess demand in the aggregate market remains positive. Simulation results suggest that our assumptions and conclusions are consistent with estimates of monetary overhang obtained (in a different way) by oth…
The Influence of Institutionally Embedded Ownership on Anglo-American Corporate Governance Migration into Emerging Economy IPO Firms
2017
We argue that the corporate governance of emerging economy IPO firms is influenced by firm-specific institutionally embedded block ownership groups. Applying an extended institutional logic perspective and using a mixed-effects ordered probit model, our findings from 190 IPO-firms from 22 African countries 2000‒2016, support the notion that five major block owner categories (corporate, private equity, non-executive, business group, state) exerts very different influence on African firms’ degree of adoption of Anglo-American corporate governance measures. We find that the influence from the various block owner groups is significantly moderated by institutional quality and tribalism, but to d…
Institutional Logic of Business Bubbles: Lessons from the Dubai Business School Mania
2014
In this essay, we integrate institutional and business bubble perspectives to build a theoretical explanation for the growth and subsequent decline of the business school sector in Dubai during the period 2002–2012. The motivation for our research-based essay stems from the question: “How is it possible that the world’s top business schools simultaneously judged the market so badly and collectively invested in activities that, in retrospect, were far from economically rational and more closely resembled euphoria and mania?” Furthermore, we ask: “Why did business school leaders decide to enter the overcrowded Dubai market in particular, precipitating its boom-and-bust cycle? Our novel integr…
Business Tourism Market Developments
2014
Abstract This paper analyzes the developments of business tourism market in the current economic environment. Internationally, business tourism has reached impressive levels; the World Tourism Organization estimated it at over 14% of the tourist movement and nearly 20% of all tourist revenues. Given the close connections with diverse areas, the business tourism was marked recently by an increasing trend closely related to the overall economic development manifested worldwide, with the opening of new markets, the intensification of international relations and contacts of all kinds.